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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25829797">The Villainess Doesn't Want to Deal With This Shit</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/XerotoXero/pseuds/XerotoXero'>XerotoXero</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Familiars, Gen, Just like... (slaps word doc) this baby can hold so many of my favorite tropes, Magic, Nobility, Original work - Freeform, Otome - Freeform, Otome Isekai, Reincarnation, Victorian... ish, but the bad guy gets his!, child abuse mention, self indulgent shit, sex trafficking mention</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 00:13:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,245</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25829797</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/XerotoXero/pseuds/XerotoXero</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Killed by a truck... how cliche!"</p><p>When a God from another world calls for a soul to save his world, he gets... Megan. When the body he chose for her rejects her soul, he finds one that accepts it. The future villainess, Lady Celeste Blackthorn.</p><p>Now Megan Thomson must learn to clean up her act before she helps him clean up his mess. </p><p>Sure, she knows the game based on his world, but her friend didn't get to finish it before Megan got isekai-ed via vehicle. Does she know enough to still be able to stop the end of the world? </p><p>Or will she die young?... again.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So my roommate recently got me addicted to a very specific subgenre of webnovels/webcomics. And as a writer, I thought I'd try my hand at it.</p><p>Behold this ever growing beast of what was once a side project but which quickly became my main free time vacuum.</p><p>I've already posted a small bit of this to Wattpad, so if you've seen it there, don't worry, BeckyG1993 is me and I'm not stealing from myself.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>She stood, brushing off her dress primly as those around her stared in confusion. Her face was still stained with tears she had only just a moment ago been crying. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Evil.” She said at last, finally looking up into the faces of her accusers. “You accuse me of evil, your highness. For what? Some sharp words? For reminding a Baron’s daughter of her place, and that she was acting vulgarly to a man already betrothed?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Her eyes, once a clear green began to stain red as she stared up at the couple on the podium. Around her, people began to scurry, as if sensing something they could not see. But it was too late for them, even as the scorned woman laughed lightly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No, no, those are not evil acts. Do you want to see </span>
  <em>
    <span>real</span>
  </em>
  <span> evil, your highness?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The man clung closer to the cowering woman attached to him, shifting them subtly so that he was shielding his own body with her frail one. Disgusting. Cowardly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The scorned woman reached out a slender hand, almost as if she was beckoning. And then clenched it into a fist even as she hissed, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>My climbing vine, do my bidding. Bind, subjugate.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The man flinched, as did several others around the room.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And suddenly there was a deathly still. The man’s eyes went blank and his arms fell limply from his human shield.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Prince Henry? Prince Henry?” The girl cried, shaking him lightly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“End her.”</span>
  </em>
  <span> The woman ordered almost boredly, and the man’s hands came up, not to embrace the girl, but to close around her porcelain neck. It didn’t take long from there, and the girl soon dangled lifelessly from his strangling grasp.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Good good.</span>
  <em>
    <span> Now come to me, my pawns.</span>
  </em>
  <span>” All around her people moved from the frozen crowd, and the man on the podium stepped down with an expressionless face, no care to the body he had just left in a heap behind him. When she was surrounded by several expressionless men, the woman’s crimson lips quirked up in a grin. “We have some work to do.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The group vanished in a flash of green, and the screen faded to black.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Bad End: Control.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“Aw man, I thought I had her that time.” Kate exclaimed as she sprawled back on the bed. I laughed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think you got enough evidence that time. You didn’t expose her trafficking ring, or her control powers, so the guards weren’t taking her seriously. Who’s gonna point a sword at someone who’s been ‘bullying’ another person.” I pointed out, turning over on the bed so that I was looking at the screen upside down. The title screen was now flashing across it, floridly telling us that it was ‘De-vine Lovers’.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Kate scowled. “I got all that in the last route, I guess I forgot to get it this time. Damnit, I just cleared Prince What’s his nuts, and he was the hardest one!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Prince Henry Claus Kensington, the thiiiiiiird.” I reminded her in a sing song. We both hated him. In the game he was a pretentious asshole who was obsessed with his fiance, the villain of the story.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Like I said, what’s his nuts.” Kate said, waving her hand weakly. “God, who inflicts that sort of name on a kid, not once, but three fucking times? Ugh, make me feel better, Meg…” She whined, looking over at me.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I pretended to think deeply about it for a moment, but we both knew what answer she wanted. “Well,” I said slowly, “You could alway go after your best boy again.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Kate immediately perked up, pretending as if the thought hadn’t even occurred to her. “Oooh,” She purred, “Mr. Shellford. I’d let him sweep me off my feet any day. He looks like he would be wild in bed.” We both looked at the place where the character in question was scowling at us from his corner of the screen.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Just make sure you pull </span>
  <em>
    <span>all</span>
  </em>
  <span> of the vines this time. We don’t want to have to go through the bad end for him again. You cried for a </span>
  <em>
    <span>week.</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Kate pouted, even as she started the game back up with a new file. “It wasn’t a </span>
  <em>
    <span>week.</span>
  </em>
  <span>” She insisted, “Besides, his vines are easier to pull. Prince Henry just has a lot of them.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It was a week, there was ice cream involved. I was there. And yeah, he has a </span>
  <em>
    <span>lot</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Maybe from knowing the Duchess the longest. That’s actually a really clever detail.” I flipped back over onto my stomach, reaching for the info booklet that had come with the game. It was dog eared and slightly tattered from all the times Kate and I had flipped through it looking for hints, or just to admire our favorite characters.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Under my fingers the booklet fell open to the character sheet of the villain, and she smiled wickedly up at me from the pages.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Duchess Celeste Aurelia Blackthorn. I never told Kate, but she was my favorite character. Due to the fact that she was the villain, she just had a much more compelling backstory than any of the other characters. It didn’t hurt that the art was absolutely breathtaking, her wavy black hair and crimson lips drawn in loving detail.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She wasn’t a questionably evil character like in most games like this, where the ‘rival’ or ‘villainess’ or whatever just amounted to being a bully that occasionally pushed people down stairs (and why was that a staple to bullying in games?), but legitimately evil. Like, killing her own parents when she was a child to inherit the title, mind controlling people, and running a full on child sex trafficking ring evil.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But there was just… something about the way the artist drew her eyes that made her look almost sad.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I looked back to the tv to watch as Kate was fast-forwarding through the opening sequence with the ease of long practice.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You know.” I finally said, “You won’t get the bonus boy if you don’t clear all of the others, and that includes Prince Three.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Kate rolled her eyes. “I’ll get to him eventually. Maybe once I don’t hate him so much. For now I just want some eye candy.” She said appreciatively even as Vincent Shellford made his first in game appearance.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Did they even have cartilage piercings back then?” I pondered.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sh… don’t ruin this for me.” Kate hushed me, and I laughed again, levering myself up from her bed. I’d already watched her run through this route a few times, so I didn’t feel like watching it again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m running down to the corner store. Need anything?” I asked, checking to make sure that my outfit wasn’t hideous enough to warrant changing. My sweats looked a little bit grease stained, probably from our pizza earlier, but I’d only be out for a bit. Kate waved at me with an absent minded noise, and I closed her bedroom door behind me with a smile, slipping on my sneakers.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I’d always heard that moving in with my best friend would be a mistake, but Kate and I were too well matched not to try. And three years on we had not only moved together once, but across an ocean and into another country. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Japan was really different from what I imagined as a weeaboo in middle school. I exited the gate in front of our rented house with a happy sigh. Honestly, I was glad I had not been drafted to be a magical girl. I just could not pull off those sorts of outfits at 25.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Kate and I had actually met in middle school, right around the time both of our weeaboo phases were at their worst. We could spend hours talking about manga and our ‘ships’, trying to one up each other on how much we knew about the country.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I think I won when I actually learned Japanese to the point of comfortable fluency in 8th grade.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Of course, our interests deviated when we got older, but that easy camaraderie we developed never faded away. And I never thought that a skill I had learned during that entire cringy period of my life would come in so handy.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But here I was in Japan, teaching English as a second language to people of all ages. Of course, once she heard about my new job, Kate had demanded to come along. She left her own job, we packed up our small apartment in Kentucky, and both of us jumped on a plane.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She didn’t have a plan for when we touched down, but that was Kate all over. Impulsive and self indulgent to her own whims. But she wasn’t adrift for more than a week before she got headhunted by the biggest animation company in the country.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was all so surreal, living out this fantasy that 12 year old me would have killed for.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I smiled absently at the cashier as he handed me back my change, and hung the two plastic bags from my arms. I bought a couple of bento for us for dinner, and Kate’s favorite ice cream because she would inevitably get the ‘bad end’ for Vincent’s route, and that would take the sting out of it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I took out my phone as I crossed the street. I should not have done that. I should have been paying attention to where I was going.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It would have prevented what happened next.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Someone should really do something about the rogue nigh-on feral trucks that roamed suburban Japan. That was my last thought.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I thought, even as the screen went black on my own life, I could hear someone shouting, “Wrong one! Wrong one! Not that one!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But I did not have time to contemplate it.</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>I woke up to a familiar/unfamiliar ceiling, and a splitting headache. Had I gone out drinking with my older students again? I thought I learned my lesson after last time. I sat up, rubbing at my stinging eyes. My head felt oddly heavy as I looked around, trying to take stock of the situation.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Maybe not one of my students, I decided after a cursory glance. None of my students raked in the money for a swanky set up like this. It didn’t even look like a hotel.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Just a really nice bedroom.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>No one else was around, I realized with a frown. Who just sets up a drunk woman in a strange room and leaves? My head was splitting as my brain insisted that this room was not strange, that it was </span>
  <em>
    <span>my</span>
  </em>
  <span> room.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But that obviously wasn’t right. This room could fit my entire apartment twice over. This wasn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>my</span>
  </em>
  <span> room.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I tried to climb from the bed, but the floor was farther away than it really should be, and I got vertigo just looking at it, so I scooted back to the center of the obscenely large bed and laid back down with a groan.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A groan that was oddly high pitched. “Did I lose my voice too? Maybe I’m sick.” I said out loud, and instead of the tones I was used to, it almost sounded like a child was speaking.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I brought my hands up to rub my eyes again, and froze at the sight of them. They were small, slender, and oddly pale. And… “Where are my tattoos?” I asked the empty room incredulously. My first tattoos, an impulse decision that Kate had pressured me into when we had just turned 18, were gone. The skin over the pulse points in my wrists was unblemished. They were ugly, amateurish things with terrible lines and a few blown edges, the result of going to a run down tattoo shop, but they were </span>
  <em>
    <span>mine.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Of course, living in Japan I often had to cover my tattoos with either make up or wristbands, depending on how long I was planning to be out in public, but not even the best makeup was this good. And also…</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Why are my hands so tiny?” and “Am I wearing a nightgown? Only old ladies wear those.” and “Holy shit, I have so much </span>
  <em>
    <span>hair.</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A deep voice dragged me out of the well of self discovery. “Oh good, you’re awake.” On the edge of the bed sat a man.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I toppled over in my shock before bouncing back up, my now tiny fists barred. I hadn’t heard him come in, or felt the bed dip down under his weight,and I wasn’t gonna go down without a fight. “Who the hell are you, where the hell am I, and what the fuck happened to me?” I demanded in quick succession.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The man tsked, shaking his head disapprovingly. “My my, such a dirty mouth for a future Duchess.” He said, but he was grinning.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What. The fuck. Is that supposed to mean?” I said flatly. If this dude didn’t start answering my questions soon, I was gonna start swinging. Kentucky girls don’t pull their punches.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The man raised his hands in a soothing gesture, but he looked far more amused than scared. “Now now, if you settle down, I’ll explain. That body does not have enough energy to get so riled up, especially so soon after a transfer.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was right, I already felt the fatigue even from the small amount of excitement. But that just made for more fucking questions. Obviously this dude had drugged me. Maybe that was why my body looked and felt so weird too. I heard that drugs could do some weird things to your mind. The hardest thing I’d ever done was aspirin.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I lowered my fists and settled back against the pillows, but I was still tensed for a fight. “Start explain’ or I start swingin’.” I growled. It sounded more cute than intimidating, even to my own ears.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The man brushed a lock of dreep green hair out of his face and smiled genially. “Well, first off. You died.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“If you’re just going to lie-” I said with a snarl, but even as I did, the memory of headlights bearing down on me flooded my mind. “Oh my God, I died. I got hit by a fucking truck! How fucking cliche is </span>
  <em>
    <span>that?!”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The man nodded. “Your memories should start coming back like that, in flashes. You might want to focus on integrating that body’s memories quicker, you don’t want to meet anyone in this house with a mouth like that. They’re going to think you’ve gone mad, and institutionalize you. Or shove you up into the attic, depending on how old fashioned they are.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Fuck you, I </span>
  <em>
    <span>died</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and this is what I get. Is this hell? Was I that bad?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The man shrugged, which caused his long hair to cascade distractingly. “It’s not that you were bad. It’s just that you were </span>
  <em>
    <span>wrong.</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“If you will allow me to continue without interruption, this will go faster and </span>
  <em>
    <span>then</span>
  </em>
  <span> you can ask any remaining questions at the end.” He waited until I nodded. “Let me start again. Megan Thompson, you died. But you weren’t supposed to. Apparently my friend was actually supposed to take your roommate, but ended up with you instead. Unfortunately, since he can only take one person every few years or so, that means that you’re as stuck with us as we are with you. So… we’re not actually sure how prepared you are for this world, and you don’t seem to recognize me, which is not a </span>
  <em>
    <span>good </span>
  </em>
  <span>sign. But welcome to the world that you know as the setting of a game called De-Vine Lovers. Your name is Celeste Aurelia Blackthorn, and you’re here to prevent a massive disaster that will happen in ten years time.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I waited for a minute, but the man seemed to be finished. “Okay… so questions. Lots of them. One, what the fuck? Two, what the fuck? And three, what the fuck?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The man, who was unfairly handsome now that I thought about it, just shook his head. “You’re going to have to translate that from trash into actual speech, young miss.” He admonished.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I shoved my hands into my thick black hair. I </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span> a brunette. “Okay, okay, hold on a minute and let me soak this in. So… I died, and now I’m in a video game?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Not… exactly. You see, you’re actually in a separate universe, and sometimes enough of that world seeps through the cracks that it inspires someone subconsciously into turning that glimpse into some form of media. Movies, books, plays… video games.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I nodded slightly. That… didn’t make sense, but it made about as much of a lack-of-sense as waking up in what I now realized was a child’s body. “So… I’m not the bad guy then? Or at least, I don’t have to be if I don’t want to be I guess.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What?” Well, how the tables had turned, now the creepy man in a child’s room was asking a question.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I gestured to myself. Or what was now myself, this was going to take some getting used to. “This body, the Duchess. She’s the bad guy in the game. But I’m obviously young enough that this body hasn’t had time to get to the really heinous shit. Do you know how pissed I would be if I had to die early </span>
  <em>
    <span>again</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” The color had drained from the man’s face. That… was not a good sign.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Nor was it when he started cussing to himself. Ha, pot, meet kettle. Clean up your own language before judging other people.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Wait.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“B-but that’s not going to happen right? The Crown Prince isn’t going to chop off my head, or I won’t get hanged, or poisoned. Like, all of that happened because the Duchess in the game was seriously evil, so all I have to do is…not be evil. That’s easy. I did that in my last life. In fact, I’m rich, so it should be even easier. Right?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The man winced, “Well… sometimes fate sort of drags people into situations whether you like it or not so… Not that I’m saying that you’re destined to die early! Of course not! Shit... I thought I had chosen a very nice body to stick you in as consolation for dying early in the other world. If I had known that body was so touched by fate I would have chosen a commoner.” He seemed to say that last bit to himself.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Somewhere a teakettle was hissing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>No wait. That was me, screaming. God, that’s an annoying sound coming from a child.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I don’t know how long I screamed for, rage and sadness too big for such a small body, but once I had exhausted the extent of my energy I flopped listlessly back against the plush pillows at the head of the bed. I put my head in my hands. “I’ve got a headache.” I whined to the man. He snorted. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You think you do? I didn’t even know I could </span>
  <em>
    <span>get </span>
  </em>
  <span>headaches until just now.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I pointed a shaking hand at him. “You shut up.” I commanded. “I got killed on accident right when my life started getting good, and you put me in a body that dies even </span>
  <em>
    <span>earlier</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and apparently I have no fucking choice in the matter! You know what, what’s your name? I need to know who to set my dying curse on.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Kallen, and as the God of this world, I’m not sure how well that would work.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Huh, so he was God. Should have seen that coming, actually. “I am going to try </span>
  <em>
    <span>really really </span>
  </em>
  <span>hard to make it stick.” I promised venomously. “How can you be a god and </span>
  <em>
    <span>not know</span>
  </em>
  <span> how this is gonna end for me?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Kallen shrugged again, and seriously, I was going to punch him. “I’m the all powerful type, not the all knowing type.” He explained simply.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You knew about the game! How do you not know the main antagonist?! That’s like, page 1 of the walkthrough!” I shrieked. Honestly, I had been kind of loud this whole time. Wasn’t I supposed to have maids or something? Why hadn’t they come running?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Well… I actually only know about the game through the god of your world, my friend who sent you to me. He didn’t go into detail though. He did tell me I made an appearance as a romanceable option.” He seemed oddly proud of that fact.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What? No you’re not.” I replied flatly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Are you saying my friend, the </span>
  <em>
    <span>god of your world</span>
  </em>
  <span>, would lie to me?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“To stroke your massive ego and get you to do what he or she wanted? Yeah. I may not have played the game, but I watched Kate play it enough that I’ve basically got the whole thing memorized. You don’t make a single appearance.” This was good. This back and forth made me feel more balanced and less terrified of my imminent mortality. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Maybe I should just let you die.” Kallen growled. “If I am not good enough, who are the options that are used?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>I held up my tiny, tattoo-less hand and began to tick off the names. “Well, there was Vincent Shellford, he was Kate’s favorite, then Nathaniel Winder, I think he’s the son of a marquis or something. He was boring. Marcus Blackthorn, Celeste’s, well… my older adoptive brother, um… oh, my manservant Elijah, for those with a taste for older men, and Prince Thr- Henry.” Something dawned on me. “Hey, do you have like, an animal form? Like… a green bird?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Kallen still seemed grumpy about not being a love interest, but answered, “Yes, how did you know that?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh my god, you’re the bonus boy!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“How much do you know about the games like the one this one is? Never mind, it doesn’t matter. Games like this usually have a bonus guy you can romance after you complete all of the main routes, just to keep you interested. They’re usually ascended background characters. And that’s what you are! In every route, no matter what, this weird green bird shows up and it’s always so out of place. I thought it was a glitch, but it’s you!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Kallen cheered up instantly. Moody guy. “Well, why did you not say that in the first place?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s not like I knew until right now, the bonus boy is a surprise after all, and Kate hadn’t managed to 100% the game by the time I… died. Shit that’s weird. Still trying to get over that. Moving on. Anyway, she hadn’t gotten through Prince Three yet, so the bonus route hadn’t been opened.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Huh… being a surprise… I like the sound of that. A prize for beating the game… Well, I am certainly a prize after all.” Kallen tossed his weird green hair. I wanted to strangle him with it.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2- Parental Problems and Unfamiliar Familiars</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I woke up the next morning still in the room of the person that is not me. I had really hoped that this was all a dream but…</p>
<p>I spent the next month holed up in that room, crying. No one could handle me, the doctors reassured the two people that were not my parents that there was nothing physically wrong with me, but nothing could console me.</p>
<p>My life, my whole life, my family back in Kentucky, my friends… Kate, who if Kallen was to be believed, should have been here instead of me, all of that left behind, never to be returned to. I mourned for myself.</p>
<p>Kallen returned every day after the doctors left, no matter what I said to him. I raged and screamed and cried, blaming him. He still came back every time.</p>
<p>He probably assumed I wouldn’t help him if he left me like this.</p>
<p>“You should calm down now. You’re making it hard for the servants to leave the manor or for supplies to get in. Do you want to trap the whole manor here with you?” Kallen said one night as I sniffled miserably from beneath the covers.</p>
<p>“What do you mean?”</p>
<p>The god or whatever sighed. “Do you not notice the things going on around you? Do you not look out the window?”</p>
<p>I finally poked my head out from the covers to glare at him. “What does that have to do with anything?”</p>
<p>He just gestured to the large window that was closest to us. Cautiously I slid out from the bed to pad over to it, opening the heavy drapes for the first time since my arrival in this world.</p>
<p>The night was dark beyond it… but no, it wasn’t night. It felt like something shifted in my vision until I realized I wasn’t looking at a pitch black sky, but at a wall of… something that was pressed up against the other side of the window. Something that had thorns. “What are those?” I gasped, and the vines outside my window shifted as if reacting to being noticed. As they did, the bright light of day flashed between them for a brief moment before being obscured again. So it wasn’t night like I thought, then. I kind of lost track of time during my month of mourning.</p>
<p>“What do you mean, what are those? You created them.” Kallen scoffed. “You’ve surrounded the entire estate in terribly thorny vines.”</p>
<p>“But… Celeste can’t do that.” I looked down at my hands, clenching them. “I mean… yeah, she has a power, but… Creeping Vine is a mental power, not a… physical one.”</p>
<p>Kallen frowned at me from his perch on his bed, then I blinked and he was beside me, grabbing one of my fists. That in itself was odd. I’d noticed in the month I’d been here that Kallen… didn’t seem to have an actual presence. He couldn’t grab or hold things, his weight didn’t crease the bed that he preferred to sit on, and the maids didn’t even look his way when they entered the room while he was there.</p>
<p>It was like a ghost could suddenly grab my hand. Weird. I snatched it back out of his grip with a glare.</p>
<p>He sighed like I was the one being ridiculous. “I need to assess you. I assume you meant that Celeste had something different in the game?” I wrinkled my nose at him, but let him take my hand again.</p>
<p>“She- I- had a power called Creeping Vine. I think it was really just a way to extend play time, an excuse for a mini game. It was basically like slow moving mind control. You’d see in each male character’s flashbacks the event called ‘Planting of the Seed’ where they would have skin contact with Celeste, and that would, well, plant the seed. Slowly it would grow in their minds, basically infecting them with obsessive tendencies towards Celeste. In the game, each time you had a romantic event with a character, you would have to take time to use the heroine’s power to prune away at the vines invading their minds until they were free from the possession. But they weren’t physical vines. It was a mental power, a flip of the coin to the Heroine’s ‘Mending Vine’.”</p>
<p>Honestly, this might have been the calmest I’ve interacted with Kallen since the day he brought me here. He seemed aware of it too, gently handling me like he was handling a frightened animal. A green power washed down my arm. It felt warm. Like he’d poured soup down my arm.</p>
<p>The man frowned over whatever he was seeing. “Well, I think it’s just your soul asserting itself over the power. You're not clever enough to be that manipulative. So it gave you something else. A literal Creeping Vine, it seems.” He let go of my hand and stepped back. Probably in case I started swinging. I’d done that more than a few times. Bastard didn’t have the courtesy to bruise.</p>
<p>I looked back out the window. “So… this is all me then. It’s reacting to my emotions I guess.” And even as I said that the vines pressed against the windows shuddered again and light streamed fully through them. I grabbed at my hair. “Well… fuck. Guess I need to calm the fuck down.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“My lady, you’re like a doll!” The maid exclaimed as she finished brushing out my long black hair. She was just admiring her handiwork, the frilly green dress and large green bow she had put me in. I had no choice in the matter. She was gratingly cheerful this morning, I assumed it had something to do with the fact that the vines around the manor had fully receded into the garden bed, allowing the house to resume its normal schedule.</p>
<p>Or with the fact that I wasn’t screaming or crying hysterically when she cautiously opened the door this morning.</p>
<p>I looked at my reflection and tried very hard not to sigh. I was 5. 5 fucking years old. I would have to go through puberty again. Not only that, but it was really weird to have someone else put my clothes on for me. Why did all of these games take place in a vaguely Victorian setting?</p>
<p>The person that looked back at me did look like a doll, though. Large green eyes framed by masses of wavy black hair, pale porcelain skin, small and delicate… a living doll. </p>
<p>I smiled up at her through my irritation. I knew this maid’s name was Katherine, memories of her being my maid since birth pushing themselves to the front.</p>
<p>Kallen had told me that this body’s memories would assimilate with time, but the manner was kind of annoying. I totally shut down, mind over taken. Like a flashback cutscene.</p>
<p>“Thank you, Katherine. What lessons are scheduled for today?” I asked, hopping off the high vanity chair. 10/10, perfect landing.</p>
<p>Katherine smiled back at me, guiding me over to the table she had set out for breakfast. “Today Lady Grace will be calling for your spelling and language lesson at 10, and then lunch, and your afternoon lesson will be with Lady May for etiquette. Isn’t that exciting?”</p>
<p>Not really.</p>
<p>But it seemed like my power had something to do with how well I controlled my emotions.So that etiquette shit would come in handy.</p>
<p>Hopefully. Kallen and I spent most of yesterday testing it out while the maids conspicuously left me alone. Now that my emotions had calmed, I could not summon any vines. </p>
<p>And now since it seemed to them like I had snapped out of my “unexplained” fit of psychosis it was back to business as usual for the young lady of the house. Joy.</p>
<p>As I ate, I weighed my options. Kallen explained the night before that the reason Celeste died in every route, whether or not she was the main antagonist, was that she was fated to die in this world no matter what.</p>
<p>So my main enemy was fate. I may have left my old world behind, left everything and everyone I loved in my last life, but like fuck was I going to let myself die again. I was going to make it to at least 80, mark my words.</p>
<p>As I clenched my fist in determination, Katherine suddenly screamed, nearly sending me right out of my skin.</p>
<p>“Katherine, what the fu- what is it?” I coughed, hoping she didn’t notice my slip up. She was pointing a trembling hand at the window.</p>
<p>“Young miss, I saw something out the window! You are… are you still feeling well? It’s not the plants again, is it?”</p>
<p>Oh, was it time already? I got up from the child sized table and opened the window with a false look of curiosity on my face. It wasn’t open for more than a minute when an enormous shape barreled through it, landing on the chair I left behind and snatching up a scone from my abandoned plate before either of us could react. Mother fucker…</p>
<p>The bird on the chair was large. Almost as big as me. And its feathers shifted from a green so light it was almost white at its head to a deep dark green at its tail feathers. It regarded us as it clutched onto its prize, studying us both as it tore away pieces from the scone.</p>
<p>Well. He certainly knew how to make an entrance. “O-oh. Oh! Young miss! This must be your familiar! Your magic awakened, so your familiar has come to find you!” Katherine exclaimed, clapping her hands in delight.</p>
<p>“My familiar is a greedy, dramatic little bitch.” I muttered low enough that she wouldn’t hear, but the ‘bird’ certainly did if the way his focus zeroed in on me was any indication. I slowly walked over to the bird, feigning caution.</p>
<p>It wasn’t unusual in this world that people who could use magic would have familiars. Almost every lead in the game was followed by some sort of animal. All except Celeste.</p>
<p>In her flashbacks, you actually witnessed her killing her familiar, a small black kitten, to keep the fact that she had any magical powers a secret. Just remembering how well the scene was rendered sent a shiver of cold disgust down my spine. The developers really wanted to drive home the fact that Celeste was evil.</p>
<p>Did they really have to go so far as to include sound bites of the cats final cries though? Ugh.</p>
<p>I stood next to the bird, and slowly held out my arm at its feet. The bird looked me over one last time before deigning to step up, walking from my forearm onto my shoulder. He was a lot lighter than I thought he would be, and looked like some sort of raptor. I walked around the table once to see how he would handle it, and the bird stayed perfectly balanced, even going so far as to begin to preen at my hair.</p>
<p>He had explained that in this form, people could see him and interact with him like they normally couldn’t. It also meant he could steal my food, the bastard.</p>
<p>“Oh miss, we must inform the master and mistress! They will be thrilled to see your new familiar!” Katherine said, running out of the room before I could respond.</p>
<p>“She’s very excitable.” Kallen’s voice said right beside my ear, and the light pressure on my shoulder vanished. I looked over to the side and up into his face with a strained grin.</p>
<p>“Yeah, apparently she’s always been like that. So… welcome to your new life, I guess. Do you think my actual familiar will still show up?” I asked, sitting back at the table and motioning him to sit on the other side. “And did you really have to take the scone? I was really looking forward to trying that.”</p>
<p>“It was delicious.” Kalled replied smugly. I stuck my tongue out at him. “And when it comes to your actual familiar, well... “ He nodded to the window that he had come through just as I heard a pathetic sounding mewl.</p>
<p>“Oh!” I rushed over to the tiny kitten that was desperately clawing its way over the sill. “Oh baby, sweetheart. You are going to be treated so much better than she treated you, I promise.” I cooed to the little creature as I cradled it to my chest. The kitten was scrawny and underfed, and just trembled in my arms. “It’s a good thing that having more than one familiar is a thing here, I don’t know how else I could have gotten away with keeping you close.” I told Kallen as I pet the shaking thing gently. It actually wasn’t the same kitten, now that I looked at it. The game’s Celeste had killed a black kitten, where this one was snow white.</p>
<p>And then I heard the pathetic, high pitched whining. At the same time I felt something like a pull against my heart. I looked out over the window to see a puppy staring up at me from the ground, its front paws on the house. I didn’t even have to ask to know it was another familiar. “What the hell, I’m going to end up with a menagerie at this rate!” I cried even as I bustled from the room, the kitten still clutched to my chest and Kallen following behind me in bird form. How he managed to get through the hallways without hitting something with his wings was another thing I’d have to ask him later.</p>
<p>The puppy ran up to me as I threw open the front door, clawing at my dress with dirty paws. It too was scrawny, but much more energetic than the kitten. I knelt down so that I could pet it as it sniffed eagerly at my hands and face before licking me.</p>
<p>“Well, hello darling. Maybe you should have come to me in the form of a baby chick, Kallen. You’ll stand out against these two.” I told him, scooping up the puppy. It wriggled in my hold, trying to continue to lick my face. “Keep that up and I might drop you.” I warned it. It ignored me.</p>
<p>Katherine still wasn’t back as I made my way back to my room covered in animals. I set both of the real animals on my bed, looking them over. Sexing the puppy was a simple matter of a glance, male. The kitten was a different matter, before I could lift its little triangle tail Kallen said, “It’s a female.” It was odd to hear his human voice coming from his animal form.</p>
<p>“Oh, good. I knew there was a way to check and I’d hoped it would be obvious, but it’s not like I can look it up here. So a boy dog and a girl cat and a shithead god-bird… Well, this is going to be a pain in the ass.”</p>
<p>“What do you mean?” Kallen asked, even as he hopped inelegantly from my shoulder to the bed, looking over the wriggling animals. Even the kitten was starting to perk up.</p>
<p>“Let me count the ways.” I held up one of my tiny hands. “First, as far as anyone else will know, I have three familiars. Two is rare enough, but three? Nearly unheard of. That’s going to bring some unwelcome attention when word spreads. Second, I don’t know if you’ve ever raised a dog or cat, but doing both at the same time along with learning to control my magic? Fun. Everything is going to be a mess until I can get these two trained up. Third? They’re both going to be pretty big. I can’t tell what breed the puppy is, but he’s gonna be huge, look at those paws. And the cat is already pretty large for what I assume is only a few weeks old. Maybe a maine coon, they get very fluffy too. Fur everywhere, on everything. So Katherine’s going to have fun with that. And finally, now I have to pick out three names! That’s going to take ages!”</p>
<p>“Three?” Kallen asked, sounding vaguely amused. He fluffed up his feathers as both actual animals struggled over the sea of bed to get close to him, snuggling up immediately.</p>
<p>“You think I’m going to call you Kallen in that form? You’re the god of this world, who knows where your actual name is recorded? If someone high up knows of your bird form and hears me, an uneducated child calling my bird familiar by it, well… that could bring problems.” I pointed at him just as my door was thrown back open. Instead of Katherine like I was expecting, a couple stood in the doorway looking at me. I stared back at them.</p>
<p>“Okay. New problem.” I muttered to Kallen. He cocked his birdy head, but I just waved a hand subtly trying to convey that I would explain later even as both of the people swept into the room and pulled me at the same time into a hug.</p>
<p>“Oh Lessy, oh my baby! We were so worried about you!” The blonde woman blubbered. The man was quiet but was holding onto both of us fiercely. “Lessy, never do that to us again! You wouldn’t eat, you wouldn’t let us see you, the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with you…”</p>
<p>“Darling, I explained it. It was just her powers settling in. Sometimes if it’s as powerful as our baby obviously is, it tends to have some drawbacks.” The man muttered into my hair.</p>
<p>Well, that was a convenient excuse.</p>
<p>“Mother, father, I can’t breath.” I gasped, reaching out one arm towards Kallen as if he could help me. He just swept one wing each over the animals snuggled into his sides. Useless god.</p>
<p>“Mother?” The woman drew back.</p>
<p>“Father?” The man did the same.</p>
<p>Well, one minute in and I fucked up already. New record.</p>
<p>“Mama and papa?” I tried, and the couple sighed simultaneously in relief. Fucked up and fixed in less than a minute. I was on a roll. The couple stood, pulling me to my feet as well.</p>
<p>“Katherine told us that you were better, and that your familiar had arrived. We were just so happy to hear that, Lessy, that we rushed here immediately. You don’t know how much you worried us.” The woman, my… well, my mother now, sighed, cradling one of my cheeks in her slender hand.</p>
<p>The man, my father, put his arm comfortingly around her waist but didn’t say anything. I slumped. “I’m sorry mama. It was just… so hard. I couldn’t control myself. I didn’t want you to see me like that.” I mumbled pitifully.</p>
<p>“Oh Lessy I know you like your space, but I do wish you would lean on us more. We’re your parents and we love you very much. We just want to help you.” My mother said, suddenly scooping me into her arms. I was surprised. Obviously it had been quite a while since the last time someone picked me up like that. I draped my arms around her neck and hugged her.</p>
<p>“It was unbecoming of a lady.” I said into her neck.</p>
<p>My father coughed awkwardly before turning his gaze to my bed. “So, this is your familiar then?” He asked.</p>
<p>I grinned, hidden in my mother’s embrace. “I think all three of them are. They all showed up one after another.”</p>
<p>“T-three?” Father gasped, even as Kallen shuffled his feathers back to reveal the sleeping forms of the other animals.</p>
<p>“Darling, our child has truly been blessed by the gods! Power enough to summon three familiars! Has anyone ever done that?” Mother gasped.</p>
<p>Father shook his head, looking dazed but thrilled. “Not that I know of! Of course our Lessy is special! You saw what she summoned just in the first month of her power awakening. And she’s only going to get stronger!” He reached over to pat my head, and I smiled innocently at him.</p>
<p>“Three familiars. Oh how magnificent! We’ll have to send out right now to get supplies for them! Celeste, have you decided on names?” Mother asked. I shook my head, knowing she could feel it against her skin. She laughed. “Well, it is a very important decision. These three will be your lifelong companions after all.”</p>
<p>I was going to respond, but froze. There, on the window sill of the still open window, a small snake was crawling in.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>You know, when I've read these stories it always confused me how they just... got over leaving their entire life behind. I know some of them had the excuse of being orphans with no ties, but I wanted my girl to mourn. She had a life she worked hard for and a family and friends, and she's not an emotionless robot.</p>
<p>Also, I love animals. So I gave her a lot of animals.</p>
<p>Like I said, this entire thing is a self indulgent side project, so she gets what I want her to get.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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